


Amongst the Lilies and by the Brook (Be Exactly Who You Are)

by lesyeuxverts



Series: I've Loved You All This While [2]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: AU, Community: lewis_challenge, M/M, magical au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 03:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3366911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Breathe with me," James says, and counts with him, and talks him through his first adaptation to this half-faerie place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amongst the Lilies and by the Brook (Be Exactly Who You Are)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Lewis Challenge Roulette round, for the song prompt "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" by Pink Floyd:
> 
> _Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun._  
>  Shine on you crazy diamond.  
> Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.  
> Shine on you crazy diamond.  
> You were caught in the crossfire of childhood and stardom, blown on the steel breeze.  
> Come on you target for faraway laughter, come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine! 
> 
> _You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon._  
>  Shine on you crazy diamond.  
> Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.  
> Shine on you crazy diamond.  
> Well you wore out your welcome with random precision, rode on the steel breeze.  
> Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine! 

The first thing that hits Robbie when he enters James's flat is the smell. He falters on the threshold, taking a minute – his lungs feel as though they've frozen, as though he's breathed in something other than air. 

It is jasmine and honeysuckle, the gardenia scent that his mum used to wear, lilac and lavender – cinnamon and the hot biting spiciness of ginger, warm milky tea and the sensuous, bitter taste of coffee that's been perfectly brewed. It smells like fresh-cut grass and the wild roaring jungle, like home and like faraway and freedom.

Through the shock that hits him with the smell, Robbie feels James's hand at the small of his back, the pressure firm through his jacket. "Just breathe," James says, his voice low – the seductive, sweet-rough faerie voice that Robbie had heard him use earlier. (This is James, who he really is, and Robbie can't but wonder what else he has missed, and half-fear further revelations.)

"Breathe with me," James says, and counts with him, and talks him through his first adaptation to this half-faerie place. 

When Robbie feels that he can open his eyes again, he blinks and adjusts to the half-darkness of the flat. James hasn't turned any lights on, but his eyes are glinting in the dimness, like cats-eyes. James's face is pale and close to his.

"I'm sorry," James says. "I didn't think it would – I thought that coming here would be easy, easier than going to Faerie."

Robbie tightens his grip on James's hand. "I don't imagine that you've brought a lot of people here," he says after a short pause. "How were you to know?"

It is easier to breathe, now, but the air roils and boils through his blood like carbonation, like singing, like an ecstatic hymn raised up high and raising with it an outpouring of adulation. (If this is James's home, how he breathes normally, Robbie can't imagine how he copes with the change to breathing out in the wider world every day, dust-dry and dull air.)

"You're the first person I've ever brought back here," James says, and he sounds almost shy. 

Robbie's first impression of the flat is almost one of a wilderness – vines entwining themselves around pots overgrown with great white calla lilies, and strange flowers that he has never seen before bobbing with the force of the sweet-smelling breeze. 

James leads him on through, though, and – "It's a conservatory," he says, trying not to let the confusion show. "Your foyer is … basically a garden."

"That's right," James says. He leads Robbie to a low divan, and pulls him down to sit – James himself sits next to it, settling on a mound of pillows. Robbie registers the sound of flowing water, and he turns his head to see a small brook babbling past them. 

"You have a…" He points, lost for words.

James nods. "I know," he says. "I'm sorry this is so strange for you." 

"Surely your landlord–" 

Shrugging, as if practicalities weren't worth noticing, James says, "I bought the place when I moved back to Oxford. I'll – it'll all revert, quickly enough, if a faerie isn't living here. But I couldn't–"

A bird calls from somewhere in the darkness. (Robbie is virtually certain that the bird is inside James's flat, not nesting near a window somewhere.)

"It's important," James says, trying again. "To me. To live somewhere – comfortable. Close to nature and homely and … all of the things that I miss, about Faerie."

"It must have been hard on you, growing up," Robbie says without thinking. "Crevecoeur and all the humans and … all that."

James is still holding his hand, his skin warm against Robbie's. "It was … there were parts of it that weren't easy. But there was the estate, the gardens, acres of land to roam through. It was … easy, in some ways."

He doesn't say anything about the things that weren't easy, the harder parts of his childhood, and Robbie doesn't press him. (Best not to go too hard, too fast, into this, whatever it is. Whatever it will be.) James turns their hands so that his is resting on top of Robbie's palm, a curiously reassuring weight. 

"You must believe me, I didn't mean to – I didn't want to keep secrets from you," he says, and it is a whisper of a confession, somehow more poignant on the lavender-scented breeze. 

"You be exactly who you are, James," Robbie says. (If he's going to be firm about anything, he's going to be firm about that – he doesn't want his James feeling that he should act more human, that he should be what Robbie expects, that he should be or do anything other than the marvelous, impossible creature that he is.)

They sit for a while, in the quiet that is not silence, that is full of the sound of flowing water, the rustling of the leaves, and snatches of sweet, flutter-winged birdsong. Robbie isn't sure if they are silent because James doesn't know what to say, or if it is simply that this is how they have always worked best together, communicating without words. (It is a communion, almost, something that feels sacred and solemn and better-suited to James's church than to the two of them, workaday and easy.)

Robbie is happy to sit and to linger, to hold on to this thing that seems to be somehow, impossibly, blooming between them. He tightens his hold on James's hand and, greatly daring, lifts it to brush a quick dry kiss across his knuckles. There's no need to make any great confession or admission – James already knows how he feels.

James puts a free hand on his leg and Robbie thinks that he needs it, maybe, needs the reassurance of touch, of knowing that Robbie is still there with him, that he hasn't been obliterated by the cold iron, that they're fine.

They have _world enough and time_ , as the poet would say. Robbie doesn't want to rush or hurry this. He wants to kiss James, properly, and the wanting is deep and diamond-sharp, almost painful. But their first kiss was marred by pain and grief and hot wild sorrow (Robbie thinks that he'll always remember it and always regret it, wish for a sweeter way to kiss James for the first time.) 

This, already, is more than enough, sitting here like this, James's shoulder pressed against his knee. World enough and time, and he'll wait a while before pressing James for anything more. They sit amongst the lilies and by the brook, and Robbie takes a deep breath. He breathes in the scent of James's flat, of this hidden, fantastic, faerie world, and waits for the right time.


End file.
